History, doctrine, culture, books

Old FARMS, New FARMS

It has been a few months since the folks running the Maxwell Institute decided to blow up the venerable FARMS Review and start from scratch with a new publication entitled the Mormon Studies Review.

So how's that project going?

Old FARMS

The new Mormon Studies Review remains nothing but an announcement at this point — an announcement with no visible updates in four months, as far as I can tell. One issue of the MSR was actually published under long-time FARMS Review editor Daniel Peterson, but the Maxwell Institute has since reclassified that single issue as Volume 23, No. 1 of the FARMS Review. The editor's introduction to that orphaned issue of the MSR makes interesting reading. So far the new MSR's publication score is -1, having depublished the only issue ever published but published no new issues. Makes you wonder what they're doing with all that tithing money they're still getting (it's not like the Maxwell Institute's budget was cut when the FARMS Review was axed).

New FARMS

Meanwhile, this being 2012, former editor Daniel Peterson and his loyal band of editors, contributors, and contributing editors simply set up a new foundation with a new website and a new online journal, and kept right on publishing. Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture posts about one article a week. Every few months they are packaged into a volume (see Volume 1), which is available for free download in almost any format you like to almost any device you own, or for purchase to your Nook or Kindle. If you like killing trees, you can buy a hard copy through Amazon.

And what is the Interpreter offering? As far as I can tell as a casual reader, it's a kinder and gentler version of the FARMS Review. Here are a few items from Volume 1:

"Charity in Defending the Kingdom," the editor's introduction, promising, "I was very proud of the FARMS Review and the Mormon Studies Review. And Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture is going to be even better."

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Actually the MI's budget was cut, after a manner of speaking, because Dan was the primary fundraiser and a fair number of donors pulled their funds. My understanding, though, is that they're working on a several-year timeframe for the journal relaunch. I'm under the impression that they think they were publishing too much, too fast and the quality had suffered as a result.

Parley P. Pratt: The Apostle Paul of MormonismGivens and Grow's warts-and-all biography of this energetic missionary, author, and apostle whose LDS career spanned Joseph Smith's life, the emigration to Utah, and Brigham Young's early leadership of the Church in Utah. My Review